2012-12-25 - Announcing Diaspora Release 2 - End of Line

After a bit of an extended silence following the release of Shattered Armistice in September, we thought it was time to reveal a bit of what's next to come. Our next release is going to be called End of Line, it will introduce an additional Battlestar type, as well as many other ship types we'll be covering over time in their own dev blog entries. The general storyline for this campaign has been written, and right now we're in the process of building additional art assets needed to tell the story.

So, how long is it going to be? Shattered Armistice was short...

We're still fairly early in the development cycle so the exact number of missions may well change over time. For now, we can say this campaign will be almost twice as long as Shattered Armistice.

When is it coming out?

Since we're still early in R2 development, it's difficult to say. With Shattered Armistice, we've done a lot of the ground work future releases won't have to deal with, so it should take much less time than it took us to get R1 out. How long exactly is impossible to predict at this juncture, so I'm afraid "when it's done" will have to be our answer to this, at least for now. We'll strive keep you updated via dev blogs, though.

What new ships will you introduce this time? Will we see the Theseus again?

There will be at least one new playable craft, possibly more. This release will introduce the battlestar Callisto, a Valkyrie-type vessel. Both the Colonial and Cylon sides will be getting additional support ships designed by StarSlayer, we plan to introduce several new space installation types, and the civilian fleet will be getting new ships added to it as well. We will cover this in more detail in future dev blog posts. You won't be seeing the Theseus in this campaign again - it's story was concluded in Shattered Armistice. It is possible we might do a campaign that features the Theseus (or a different Sobek class) during the first Cylon war, but this isn't planned for End of Line. Of course, the Theseus and any other R1 ships will remain available for use in the mission builder.

What can you tell us about the plot?

Not much, really - we'd like to avoid spoilers so the plot is fresh to the player when it comes out. Once again, the bulk of the plot happens during the fall of the Colonies.

But isn't introducing another battlestar that survived the fall stretching it a bit? How will you explain it?

You'll have to wait and see Technically, though, we never introduced a battlestar that survived the fall. As for Callisto's ultimate fate or how she came to avoid being destroyed immediately when the attack began, you'll just have to play it when it comes out. We've put a lot of thought into integrating this plot line with the continuity of the show, and we hope you'll find the story fits the universe naturally.

Will we see the Galactica or Pegasus this time?

Not in this release, sorry. The whole point of episodic releases was to not have to do everything in one huge release that takes too long to finish, risking project death before we get to release anything. This way we set more smaller, realistic goals, and get a lot of useful feedback along the way allowing us to fine-tune and improve the game as we go along. The Galactica and Pegasus are planned to show up after R2, though.

So much for now, on behalf of the Diaspora development team I'd like to wish happy holidays and a Merry Christmas to everyone!

Re: 2012-12-25 - Announcing Diaspora Release 2 - End of Line

cant wait for this to come out. Shattered Armistice is tied for first on my favorite campaigns of all time list. I have never seen BSG, so this was an amazing experiance in that everything was new to me and unexpected. I loved Shattered Armistice because of the tight spots I always managed to wriggle out of and the epic story. This is my favorite flying game period and I wish more people knew about Diaspora because they don't know how much fun they are missing out on.is the campaign definitly coming out this year? I will mark my calender as soon as it is announced and will eagerly await another amazing story!